


i'll bite

by bramblecircuit



Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: Biting, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, One Shot, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-16 07:01:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18686497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bramblecircuit/pseuds/bramblecircuit
Summary: All Vanessa wants is to look at him until she’s memorized his face, until his eyes are an intimate sea—All Ethan wants is to never be seen by anything but the moors.“Come inside,” she whispers, her fingers light on his wrist. “We don’t have to talk about it.”Ethan's transformation goes wrong one full moon.





	i'll bite

It’s never happened this way before.

He’s used to the self-hate and the carnage. The bone-deep exhaustion and the blood around his fingernails. His body a catalogue of how, yet again, he’s let himself betray everything he believes in. 

Maybe murder just follows a person and there’s nothing to do except repent.

Ethan runs a hand over his face. Still there—two fangs protruding from his jaw. He growls, barely restraining himself from punching a trembling fist into the tree bark. He’s tried everything: standing in direct sunlight to burn away the impurities, running himself to within an inch of unconsciousness, even scratching at his face. 

He winces. That’s sure to leave a nasty mark.

He should go inside, of course he should, back to the cozy, secluded life he and Vanessa have built for each other. But he can’t do it. Not like this.

* * *

_“Just bolt the goddamn door.”_ It taunts her as she wakes up in the empty cottage. It rings as she fills the kettle and washes the pot. It spins circles in her mind as she sets the table and waits. It follows her through the rooms as she restlessly checks her stocks of flowers and herbs, takes books off the shelves and puts them back without reading the titles. 

Then she sees him through the window. His head falls awkwardly between his hands, and he rotates on his heel, refusing to face the door that would open easily if he reached for the handle. 

It’s a needle to the heart, seeing him so injured, and it almost immobilizes her. But she’s out the door in an instant, quick strides erasing the gap between them.

Ethan doesn’t have to look up to know she’s there. 

What is there to say?

She puts a hand on his shoulder. He tenses against it, but he’d like nothing but the opposite, to relax against her hand and raise his face to the air again.

She moves her hand to his back and feels his breath turn uneven. Vanessa knows he’s in torment, but she can’t help her mind from drifting to more pleasant imagery.

Unbuttoning one of his shirts, perhaps. Just enough to reach his collarbone.

“Do you promise not to scream?” His voice is so defeated it doesn’t even sound like a question.

“Nothing you truly are could frighten me.”

Ethan slowly lifts his face and flinches against the sunlight. It’s only as Vanessa takes in the picture, her eyes steady and gentle, that his fangs recede. Ethan presses a hand to his mouth. There’s nothing, not even a bump to signal they were there.

All Vanessa wants is to look at him until she’s memorized his face, until his eyes are an intimate sea—

All Ethan wants is to never be seen by anything but the moors.

“Come inside,” she whispers, her fingers light on his wrist. “We don’t have to talk about it.”

* * *

Ethan gingerly pats his face with a washcloth. His jaw, the space between his eyes—studying his features in the right light would reveal a litany of imperfections. Hints at the monster prowling beneath the skin.

“Careful.” Vanessa reaches for the cloth and pats a fresh spot of blood from his face.

He watches her through the water still dripping from his hair. The distortion makes her look ethereal, almost as out of place as him.

She folds the cloth and laces her hands together. 

A moment passes, then another.

And suddenly he can’t take the distance. He wants a million things at once and has none of the language to ask for them—but he can kiss her, and he does, one hand firm on her waist, the other cradling her face.

“Can I carry you upstairs?”

She says nothing, just braces herself against his shoulders and jumps.

* * *

He’s finally forgotten how to breathe. That’s the only explanation. She runs her hands first over his sweater then under it, his body rising and falling as all he can do is gasp. 

It’s nice, isn’t it? Letting yourself fall into someone else’s hands?

She traces patterns on his bare chest and he whimpers, blush warm on his cheeks. 

It’s magic, being touched after starving for it. It’s sorcery. The insistent music of her fingertips, the kisses on his neck. The sheer thoroughness of it all. 

Vanessa puts her lips to where his heartbeat is loudest.

“Am I enough for you?” It slips out unbidden, but he wouldn’t take it back. She raises his face to his, kisses him with a determined gentleness that he’s sure flowers feel when they bloom for the first time.

“You are exactly right.”

It’s almost enough to send him over the edge, and he panics. The whole world is dissolving and he won’t be able to stop it. 

“Could you—Vanessa—go slower.” He’s losing himself too quickly, but oh _no,_ that’s worse somehow, the heat of her hands achingly slow up his side, her fingers rubbing small circles, swooping around the weak spot between his ribs. 

He tries not to pull her hair, but he can’t help it. Vanessa smirks, her own pulse hot between her legs. She’s got him right where she wants him, his lips parted, all his control lost. He’s beautiful from this angle—not angelic, but otherworldly. Splayed and helpless and—

“Vanessa.” His eyes are open for the first time in minutes and she has to steady herself around his hips. He tilts his head away from her. His neck is vulnerable, perfect, soft against her mouth. He shudders.

_“Please.”_

He doesn’t have to ask twice.

* * *

He doesn’t want to wake her. She makes too pretty a picture sometimes, and this is one of those times, her hair an uneven shadow on her chest, her whole body curled slightly as though suspended by an invisible cloud. Her hands pull faintly at the tassels of the quilt, the gesture enough to remind him of everything else her hands can do.

He’ll just look at her for a while.

When she wakes up, she’s suspended between dream and reality and only wants to be held. He opens himself for her—she’s always loved how he does that, how solid and permanent his arms feel around her back. She takes her time settling in, shifting her body against his for the sheer pleasure of letting their skin touch. 

There it is again: her insatiable desire for the small and intimate. The hand on her cheek. Her name in his mouth. The finger trailed haltingly from her neck to her chest. 

She presses her face against his shoulder. 

“For someone so afraid of his own monstrosity, you _really_ like to be bitten.”

He laughs a little, presses her closer.

“You’ve got a very adept bite there, Van.”

“Maybe I’m the one you should watch out for.” She wriggles from his embrace onto her back, her hair falling away from her chest and surrounding her body in a dark halo. 

Ethan rolls his eyes a little. She won’t just ask, will she? She could just ask, but no, she’ll play and withhold and draw him in until he’s the one begging. 

She stretches, the smile on her face teasing as she watches him through a messy curtain of her hair. Hair he’s just dying to brush away from her face. 

_You win this time, Van,_ he thinks, smiling in spite of himself. He pulls the quilt away and crawls on top of her. Her hands are almost immediately tangled in his hair, her whole body rippling with quiet laughter. 

_I’ll bite._


End file.
